Page 1 of Curse the Flame

PROLOGUE, PART I

BROOKLYN, 1946

AIDEN

Johnny Wallace runs.

Of course he does. You know what? After the last year spent working for my boss, I can’t even pretend to be surprised.

The second our eyes meet through the crowd, I know exactly what’s going to happen. His shoulders lock up, his head snaps forward, and he takes off down Fulton Street like the Devil himself is after him instead of one tired veteran in a long black overcoat.

“Goddamn it.”

The curse disappears beneath the rumble of a passing trolley as I shove my hands deeper into my jacket pockets and quickly lengthen my stride. There’s no point sprinting after him yet so I don’t. In my experience, men like Johnny don’t think once they start to panic. They just run until something looks safer than whatever’s chasing them.

Teddy taught me that. Well, no. The second Great War taught me that lesson first, but since I’ve been home this last year, it’s Theodore “Teddy” Thanos—local mob boss who rules this corner of Brooklyn—who’s taken me under his wing, helping me get out of my own head and focus on making the world a better place after all the horrors I saw while I was overseas.

His hired gun, I kill those who deserve it. He gives me a name and a reason to put them down, and tonight’s target is getting away.

Not if I can help it.

I weave through the evening crowd without drawing attention to myself. A hefty, red-cheeked woman balancing two grocery bags mutters under her breath when my upper arm accidentally clips her shoulder. I tip my black felt fedora in apology without slowing down. Johnny glances behind him again just in time to see that I’m still there.

He speeds up, nearly slamming into the copper on the beat that took the corner ahead of him. He calls out a hurried apology as the officer yells at him to watch where he’s going, and I slow my stroll as I wordlessly pass the man by while keeping my target in my sights.

It’s busy tonight. That’s something I notice, something that sets my stomach a-rolling. That’s not all, though. A year after it ended, Brooklyn is the sort of big city that still hasn’t figured what it wants to be now that the war’s finally over. Half the haunted men on the sidewalks wear uniforms that don’t fit anymore because they’re finally home, while the other half wear suits they can’t really afford because they’re trying to convince themselves life has gone back to normal. The women have traded ration books for shopping bags, and every neighborhood bar is packed with soldiers trying to remember who they were before Europe.

Brooklyn keeps moving. That’s what it does. From the hum in the late October air, you’d never know that half the boys who left these streets never came back.

Aodhán Murphy—or Aiden, the name thrust onto me during school when none of my teachers could pronounce the Gaelic name my mam gave to me—almost became one of them.

Instead, I came home to find my sweetheart, Veronica, wearing another man’s wedding ring.

I don’t think about her much anymore—and that’s a lie. I think about her almost every damn day, wishing I could forget her pretty dark hair, her sweet smile, and the guileless way she swore she’d wait for me before the years passed and she didn’t.

It’s not that I still hope she’ll come back to me. That ship sailed somewhere over the Atlantic. No, I think about her because every now and then I catch myself wondering what would’ve happened if Germany had surrendered six months sooner. Maybe I’d have gotten home before she met Frank. Maybe I’d have walked her home after church instead of writing letters from a muddy foxhole. Maybe we’d have argued over curtains and baby names instead of becoming strangers with shared memories.

Funny how a whole life can change so drastically thanks to a single envelope.

Dear Aiden...

I still have the letter. Don’t ask me why. I should’ve thrown it away like I did so much of the past once I returned to Brooklyn and realized I had nowhere to go but a local boarding house. Maybe because tossing Veronica’s goodbye feels too much like admitting the life I’d planned is gone, or because I want that future they promised us. With the girls who waited and the white picket fences, not names on a list and a loaded Colt pressed against my palm.

Focus, Aiden. Don’t let him get away…

Johnny darts around a delivery truck and nearly gets himself flattened by a taxi. The driver leans on the horn long enough to wake up half of Brooklyn.

“Watch it, pal!”

Johnny ducks his chin to his chest and continues his flight. He has the desperate edge to his determination that tells me his path isn’t random. He’s heading somewhere, and I’m back on the hunt.

I finally pull my right hand free from my pocket, shifting it under my jacket. I’m careful to keep the Colt tucked beneath my coat where nobody can see it.

Not yet, at least.

Teddy always says there’s no sense frightening a man until it’s useful. I don’t know if he came up with that before or after he became one of the most feared men in Brooklyn. Either way, I’ve learned to listen.

When I got back from the war, there wasn’t much work waiting for a twenty-seven-year-old who knew more about rifles than résumés. The factory didn’t need me. The garage where I worked before enlisting had already hired somebody else. Every place I walked into had the same apologetic smile.